Exactly. I'm always surprised when people think it's the ads themselves that matter. It's the behavioural data and profiling that's valuable. With that information, you can place targeted ads elsewhere.
I'm sure most users still don't realise that WhatsApp is an FB product now.
Edit: Link -- https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard
From a wired article about it:
"Textsecure has actually already been quietly encrypting Whatsapp messages between Android devices for a week. The new encryption scheme means Whatsapp messages will now travel all the way to the recipients? device before being decrypted, rather than merely being encrypted between the user?s device and Whatsapp?s server."
1- They somewhat are able to read my browser history even when I have ABP with "Fanboy's Social Blocking List" and a selective JS blocker installed.
2- They read my whatsapp messages.
>"When a logged-in Facebook user visits a site with Facebook social plug-ins, Facebook receives the Facebook ID and browser ID, along with the URL of the page being visited,"
quote from a The Verge article:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/31/8319411/facebook-tracking-...
Lately I had added a couple new contacts to my phone's agenda, and now facebook shows me these in the "people you may know" emails
it's clear to me that they had already started the data capture
A simple example is you are talking to a few friends on WhatsApp about booking a holiday somewhere, you talk about locations, dates, prices, etc. all in private, now Facebook can take all that data and using their massive Facebook tracking system start advertising offers for hotels in the places you are looking at going, shops you often mention that sell clothes for your holiday, travel insurance, etc, etc.
You don't need to stick ads IN the app to monetise it. In fact keeping it clean and ad free is the best thing to do as it keeps your users happy and using your app more which in turn leads to more and more data collection.
I think the $1 a year thing is a load of crap that is used to distract people away from the whole "if it is free you are the product" idea. If WhatsApp looks like it is not free because you have to pay $1 a year then psychologically you "trust" it more because it is something you pay for rather than something that is analysing every thing you ever say to build a better advertising profile. Also has anyone actually ever paid that $1? I don't know anyone who has, they always get some "promotion" that gives them another year free for being a loyal WhatsApp user.